The Duplicity of Obama’s Drug Policies
Filed Under: Green Politics on December 7, 2011
President Barack Obama has made a lot of promises that he’s failed to keep. In America, this has become the hallmark of the career politician. You cannot be accepted into mainstream politics unless you can boldly lie like no one has lied before. Nowhere are the lies more obvious than in the War on (some) Drugs and the White House’s drug control policies.
During his campaign, many in the cannabis freedom movement were wooed by his rhetoric of Hope and his promises of Change. Then, just as collectives and dispensaries breathed a sigh of relief at his promises of letting states determine their own policies on medical marijuana, he turned the Department of (in)Justice loose on them.
Last week, Obama gave presidential pardons to three individuals who have suffered under the yoke of drug conviction’s astigmatism for years and whose actions under that weight proved that they are better than the drug policies that attempted to destroy them. But Obama’s pardon for those three fell about 749,997 short of covering all of the ruined lives thanks to a senseless marijuana policy.
In 2010 alone, 750,000 people were arrested for simple possession. That’s of 853,000 nationwide who were arrested for marijuana violations. Obama’s feel good gesture to three deserving individuals was a slap in the face to the millions of others who’ve suffered the same life destroying effects of the War on (some) Drugs. Those three pardons do nothing to appease the homes destroyed, the reputations ruined, the bank accounts seized or drained by lawyers, or the family pets murdered or the unfortunate deaths of victims and officers thanks to the White House’s senseless war that cannot be won.
During the press conference held by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske to announce the pardons and talk about the racism systemic to the drug war, the extreme duplicity of the nation’s top Drug Warrior and his boss were laid bare.
In one sentence, Kerlikowske said that “we cannot arrest our way out of our drug problems.” Even as the Czar spoke, prosecutions and plans for more raids on dispensaries and medical cannabis operations were underway.
If we cannot arrest our way out of our drug problems, then why do we continue to try to do so? You don’t have to be Socrates to see the fallacy in that logic.
Sorry, Mr. President, but you have a lot more pardons to sign before this is made right.
